It is not current news that revenue and income abound for students of accounting is in a very stable state given the cash and capital flow they get for their services, whether small or at great cost.
This is because accountants are some of the best people in the industry to help an individual or company when it comes to reporting on current public financial standards, auditing professional practice and capital flow within a company and industry, or even simply providing statements on net asset revenue and income after interest is accounted for.
Like we said though, there is a certain cost when you deal with tax, business, financial and management accountants and their services since their education is not free, yet their skills are firm.
This is because they know how to institute best practices from the enormous amount of time spent to learn about professional accounting software, current global trends in the news on free trade and state/public sector net capital growth, net asset management, and small business incentives through journal articles and the study of numerous statements.
Since accountants bear such in-depth knowledge about the industry and its reporting standards and their associated software, the general public can greatly rely on them and their resources.
For those who are already professionals who work in the industry, or students who are currently studying accounting, business management, or financial and tax systems, reading this blog will be a good use of your time since articles like this can refresh your own independent learning thanks to online software and resources, which can boost your income and even get you a shortcut to membership with the CPA.
What An Accountant's Work Entails
If you work in the financial or tax reporting industry or have anything to do with cash, capital, interest, or auditing business practice within the public or private sector, there are free resources you can help yourself to maintain best practices.
Let's first understand what an accountant will do in their work though.
Typically, accounting involves offering professional services to a company or individuals to help them in the management of their cost, spendings, capital, and revenue/income streams.
The accountant is the person who will apply industry standards and find the best cost-value analysis and outcome for the company so that they have a clearer idea of their expenditure.
What this looks like in practice is that you will end up assessing and auditing of the market position of the company within the industry in Australia or internationally.
An audit is so important because it checks that everything is in order within the company and all capital and cash flow can be accounted for within the annual revenue.
There is a range of professional outcomes for this, including professional tax services consultant like at H&R Block where you provide taxation knowledge to individuals or businesses regarding their tax and tax returns.
It could also include public sector auditing such as spending by a state government to make sure that public cash, capital, and asset lists are going where they're meant to, thus stopping the government from having to issue official statements and ending up in the news by accidentally allocating the money incorrectly.
It might also interest professionals seeking entry to the Certified Public Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CPA) body to know that there are also many ways the concurrent study of law or economics can boost your accounting knowledge and diversify your ability to audit and in reporting statements given the wider range of work beyond just a finance focus that becomes available to you.
Find out about studying accounting in Australia.
Being Able To Learn Independently In Any State Or Stage Of Work
We will briefly run you through the levels and types of study available to an accounting student below in order to give you a background to what they will learn, in order to later elucidate upon what the resources they can use to support their own professional growth and learning are.
High School
This will typically occur at HSC or VCE level and will give you an introduction to the basics in order to boost you into further study later or complement other subjects you may be taking.
Whilst you can't get a direct path to CPA membership from here, this can create shortcuts at university via an acknowledgement of prior study.
The professional attributes and knowledge you will acquire here are typical:
- The ability to collect and collate numbers and data on an individual, public, or company
- The means to learn from the data
- Ways to report these in plain English
- Knowledge on efficiently providing bookkeeping
- How to offer recommendations for future best practices by a company based on your analysis
Look in depth at the accounting courses available in Australia.
University
These courses will be more in-depth and often lead directly to CPA membership which is necessary to practice as a public accountant in Australia.
- Bachelor degree
More general in scope, this is where you will get information about the overall industry and its standards as well as introductory information about reporting and auditing within tax law and public structures, as well as finding analytical avenues for this expertise that you can offer through summarised statements to a company.
This is where you will probably come into first contact with accounting software, which can be initially difficult to navigate but will be a lifesaver once you start to actually offer your professional services as an accountant.
In addition, the time for reading and being able to learn from the news, relevant blog selections, and journal articles is here, since the state of this work is such that it will help you follow and understand the theoretical side of finance, tax, auditing, business, and accounting work.
This will then be put to use in an internship or industry-based project which you can choose based on where you would like to provide your expertise later.
Find great basic accounting classes here on Superprof.
- Master degree
The more specialised postgraduate course is for those who either want deeper understanding, complementary knowledge to their work, or a fast-tracked path to more dynamic and diverse work.
This is because a master of accounting, or financial management and accounting, or whatever label the university may put it under is more in-depth and will assume accounting students can absorb and apply more general knowledge on the field straight away, and use this to solve bigger global issues based on the industry they want to work in.
Due to this, access to financial membership-based bodies such as the CPA and CFA is highly facilitated by study in such a program, even guaranteed upon completion in some cases.
The subjects covered in such studies will centre around corporate financial reporting and strategy, financial policy, cost management, and auditing and assurance services,
Take the extra leap with the help of an accounting tutor.
Technical qualifications
There is also the possibility for those who are already in another industry but want to branch out by gaining bookkeeping and financial analysis skills by getting some extra study in accounting and actuarial fields under their belt.
This would typically be undertaken at TAFE as part of a certificate IV, and cover the most fundamental elements of financial services, with a view to further study or simply applying this straight away (once the software and other necessary assets to offer said services are acquired) as an independent private contractor or consultant.
Useful Resources For Accountants
Once studying is over, accountants still need to maintain current knowledge of the market, software, and practices out there. They can do this by watching the news, reading journal articles, or undertaking independent learning online or with a tutor.
We detail below some useful resources accountants can use to keep themselves delivering best practices in their services.
Find great accounting online class here on Superprof.
Melbourne University Free Business And Economics Resources
As one of Australia's top universities, the knowledge and information you can acquire here are indispensable, especially given that it's free.
This site has plenty of useful links about Australian accounting standards, as well as prudential regulation and securities and investments links.
For those who are looking to gain initial entry to, boost current membership in, or branch out into more diverse ones, there are also professional associations listed and explained here which students are free to explore at their leisure.
CPA Tools And Resources
This is truly a cornucopia of knowledge provided by Australia's premiere accounting and financial services body.
Here, you can find links on how to achieve better results and higher revenue from your work and has topic focus areas that span from audit and assurance to ethical industry standards, to non-for-profit and public sector information, and even to covid-19 support relating to taxation reporting.
This is also a great repository for linking to library resources including news and journal articles which will make sure your current knowledge is up to date and academically and professionally sound.
Corporate Finance Institute Accounting Articles
This is really the place to come if you want to take a critical lens to your job and provide some dynamic learning for yourself so as to really get new results.
This site has a wide and up-to-date range of journal articles written by professionals and academics alike which keep accountants in touch with the goings-on of the industry. These can pertain to software updates, accounting theory breakdowns, or just general guides to making sure the practitioner can do the best they know-how.
Dive deep into the specifics of your accounting degree.
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